12 step recovery

Menu

The Road To Resentment Is Paved With Expectation

Many an emotion and feeling has been shared at a meeting. Perhaps more than any other, the feeling most touched upon is resentment. When we first entered the program this fact puzzled us greatly. During our years of using, resentment often got pushed beneath the surface due to our use of drugs, alcohol and food. Now that we had entered sobriety, our resentments seemed to be making up for lost time. We just couldn’t understand how other people could be so arrogant, thoughtless, greedy, insensitive and pushy on a daily basis. Yet, as we attended more meetings, we did encounter people that had achieved a degree of serenity. Why weren’t they raging against other people who had engaged in some transgression against them? Why weren’t they encountering the same kinds of people as us? As we listened to them speak we realized that it really had nothing to do with who they met or what was said or done to them. What was pivotal was their attitude towards others and in particular their level of expectation of behavior. When they had no or little expectation of others, resentments were extremely minimal. Conversely, when they had high expectations which were not fulfilled, resentments boiled over. As we followed their lead, we saw a decline in resentments as well.